Kenya in 'search and rescue' as Shebab claims 100 soldiers killed

Kenya said a search and rescue operation was underway in Somalia on Sunday as Al-Qaeda-linked militants claimed to have killed over 100 Kenyan soldiers in Friday's attack on an African Union base.

The base in southwest Somalia was attacked by Shebab fighters early on Friday morning, in the latest incident of an AU Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) base being overrun by the militants.

"We embarked on a search, rescue and recovery operation as a priority," military chief Samson Mwathethe told reporters on Sunday morning in the capital Nairobi. "Our troops are engaging the terrorists."

Kenya has so far declined to say how many of its soldiers are dead, injured or missing but on Sunday a Shebab statement said that more than 100 Kenyan soldiers were killed and others captured.

"Mujahideen fighters... stormed the Kenyan base in the early hours of Friday morning, killing more than 100 Kenyan invaders, seizing their weapons and military vehicles and even capturing Kenyan soldiers alive," said the emailed statement, seen by AFP.

And in June, Shebab killed dozens of Burundian soldiers when they overran an AMISOM outpost northwest of Mogadishu.

The Shebab, fighting to overthrow Somalia's internationally-backed and AU-protected government, has lost much territory in Somalia but continues to launch attacks there as well as in Kenya, killing at least 67 people at Nairobi's Westgate Mall in 2013 and massacring 148 people at a university in Garissa last April.